


Becoming Dr Strange

by OnlyForward



Category: BBC Sherlock, Dr Stephen Strange - Fandom, Dr Strange - Fandom, MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Sherlock - Fandom, Sherlock Holmes - fandom
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Sherlock pines for John, dr strange - Freeform, johnlock au, marvel AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 5,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24045559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnlyForward/pseuds/OnlyForward
Summary: 'When Sherlock falls, he goes off to New York and while trying to destroy Moriarty's network, has an accident and become Dr Strange. With this magic he destroys the network faster easier and quicker. Coming back to London after 18 months, he finds John missing. After going to Mycroft, he finds out that John, desperate to find Sherlock and needing something to keep him busy, has become a CIA agent under the name Everett Ross. Sherlock immediately goes over to New York to find him and bring him back.' Idea Credit to @johnlock_rose on Instagram (The url doesn’t work anymore and I don’t know who it was, I’m so sorry that I lost track, this is several years late anyways)
Relationships: Everett Ross/Stephen Strange, Johnlock, Sherlock Holmes & Stephen Strange, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Sherlock/John - Relationship
Comments: 5
Kudos: 54





	1. Chapter 1

Falling was just the start, an experience he revisited many time in his nightmares. The whipping noise of his coat then -flash- John's pained eyes -flash- his eyes open and London, his beautiful city, flies past him. But he never hits the floor, because he shoots up in bed with a racing heart. In a crappy hotel bed. Not his - there was no more familiarity about his life anymore. 

"My hair," he groaned. It was truly a mess - his favourite hair products were apparently only made in London, so he had been going off stupid hotel shampoos ever since he left. Biggest regret of his life, leaving London. 

Glancing at the clock, he found that it was three in the morning. Great. Pining after John then, until he had to catch his flight. Of course that somehow gravitated into violin playing, very mellow and dramatic, as it often was when he was pining. 

Five hours later, he had left the hotel, paid the bill and was heading to the airport in order to catch a flight to New York. He shifted uncomfortably. His hair was tousled and he was wearing a cap, with jeans, t-shirt and a varsity jacket as to prevent him from being recognised. His pseudonym for this flight, this stage of the plan, was Stephen Strange. Mycroft had arranged the passport and the medical school certificates, certifying that he was a licensed Doctor. This was all for a particular strand of Moriarty's web, to do with American healthcare and its continuous supply of drugs. 

He would find employment (dull) as soon as possible. Mycroft had chosen neurosurgery because it was one of the most intricate things he could think of and Sherlock has actually performed brain surgery before, for a case in his early twenties, which was a very long story and completely besides the point. But now he was sitting on a plane, flying further away from John than he would ever like to be. 

Of course, John would be grieving over him. In his eyes, Sherlock was truly dead, even with a fancy gravestone that he had picked out and visited the day before he left. John had been going regularly as well. Sherlock had thought perhaps it would give him some closure, having a place to go and visit his dead best friend. He felt awful about it, truly there was no feeling in the world worse. This type of pain made him want to jump out the window with an emergency parachute and request Mycroft gets someone to deal with this. Stephen Strange wasn't him, it shouldn't be him. 

And then soon, New York has arrived and it's all a hustle to arrive to the small apartment that is so very much unlike Baker Street. No Mrs Hudson here to greet him and make him coffee. No John to lighten up the place and certainly no inquiring victims wandering in to see if the detective can solve their tales of woe. No more cases. 

As he lies in bed, a stiff, uncomfortable bed that feels like he's back in boarding school again, although there's an absence of whispers, he's reminded of the fact that he's desperately alone in this crazy world. His American accent has been perfected and he knows Stephen Strange out of a textbook. But in his heart, the detective simply longs to be back in London.


	2. Chapter 2

A few months on and nothing has changed. Well, that's not entirely fair. He's living Strange's life, an arrogant neurosurgeon who is insanely rich and talented. It's hard to stop himself from deducing every patient and to actually start wearing fancy watches (because why on earth would Sherlock ever wear a watch, that's John's thing and he doesn't need to know the time) because that's the sort of thing Stephen Strange would do. 

The thing that's surprised him the most is his easy going relationship with the nurse Christine. It's just friendly, though, or at least it is to him. He doesn't exactly know how she wouldn't be able to get the gay vibe he was sending out subconsciously, but then again the Doctor seems to act more straight for some reason. It is similar to his relationship with Molly Hooper, actually, although he doubts that Christine would ever date a criminal mastermind. With her taste in men though, it could be a hit or miss in that sense. 

And he puts up a brave front, he really does, but then again he's always been a good actor (ever since Mycroft's frankly abysmal performances in school he had to show him how it was done). But he's still alone in New York, if he was going to be honest. The apartment was cold as ever and it was pristine as Stephen was supposed to keep it. As a surgeon would keep it. Clean, clean, clean. His life was clean now. Clean of John, clean of friendship and happiness and love. 

But not of Mycroft. His brother still checks in on what he likes to call his burner phone (yet there's a slight irony there, a pang in his heart that reminds him that the reason he's away is because of Moriarty's burning) but also his lifeline-to-heaven phone. He's always hovering on it, drafting messages to Mycroft and mostly John.

Mycroft's ones are filled with questions about whether he is okay and is the cover intact and it takes all Sherlock has in him not to reply 'How is he' because Mycroft would understand and he knows his brother will be keeping an eye on one of the only people he cares about in the entire world. The ground rules decree not though. One of the stipulations they agreed, Sherlock especially. It would be too painful to hear how John was, because if there was one mention of tears or immense pain then Sherlock would be right on a plane and it would be so much work, so much planning ruined. So no John talk. Just Stephen Strange talk. It was reassuring to hear about Mycroft slowly dismantling Moriarty's network as a result of his sneaking around New York late at night. Sherlock's insomnia had reached an all time high, which was very worrying for Christine and all his colleagues. But hell, he could do this work in his sleep. 

So why not dedicate himself to the surgery? He'd learnt a lot in his time here, mainly about social interaction but some surgical knowledge too, which could come into play at some point. He was their most trusted neurosurgeon and was often out in fancy vehicles to accept some award he didn't need and then run off stage because fuck - social gatherings really weren't his cup of tea. 

Was it really a surprise then, when he was driving one night and being really irresponsible, talking about surgery on the phone whilst looking out for a dealer on the side of a cliff, because that's the info that Myc had given him latest but damn this patient was so interesting and then a screech of the tires and the car was spinning spinning spinning and Sherlock was gasping and the wheel is spinning as well and he's hitting his head and - shit, there's the air bag and - - fuck a cliff a cliff a cliff and he grabs the wheel desperately and swerves and then - - goes down down down this less steep part because this won't be fatal - he's calculated - shit shit shit - John John John John John.

"It's a miracle they found you," Christine tells him when he wakes up. Sherlock is gritting his teeth regretting coming to New York , he just wants John this is too much pain, too much effort, too much work! "Stephen. They did all they could for you." 

His fucking hands. His hands. If Sherlock had been assigned this patient, himself, he'd have done a much better job than this.   
"Was it Millwell?" Sherlock asks shakily, staring at them in disbelief. This can't be happening. Not to him. 

"No, just a surgeon from the other department," Christine tells him softly. She's putting him, he realises with malice. God, he hates this. 

He doesn't need a doctor to tell him what this means for him. He was an idiot. He was reckless, and stupid, and should've taken more care. Permanent nerve damage, obviously. Forever shaky hands. Sherlock will never be able to do experiments, or neurosurgery, again. He's blown the operation because of one stupid mistake that shouldn't have happened.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock is distraught. He thinks of John with his leg, but this isn't psychosomatic. He thinks that pain shouldn't be something humans have to face, or at least not this much in such a short amount of time. Emotional pain, too, although Sherlock is guilty of causing that in John, too, by leaving him and faking his death. 

The phone, his lifeline to heaven is destroyed in the sea, but Mycroft, ever the stalker brother, finds his way back quickly. A nurse walks in when Christine goes to get a coffee and silently passes him a phone. Perhaps not a nurse. He glances at the messages, and then memorises both his and John's numbers, then throws the phone in the trash. 

54 phones later (Sherlock started to wipe them clean and give them away to a charity shop who thought they were having a field day), Mycroft has gotten the message, or rather, hasn't. 

There's nothing there for him in New York. He could spend time debating with people, wasting his time discussing whether his hands can stop shaking all the time, but he knows it's a lost cause. Nothing can help him, so he heads back to London. 

His goodbyes to Christine aren't tearful, because they've argued and argued over his hands and how nothing matters anymore and she said her good bye, and he doesn't have anything more to say. He's slipped out of her life just like he slipped in, but he hopes fervently that she will find someone that is worthy of such patience for such an arrogant pest. Stephen Strange, although he technically still is the Doctor, truly was a mess. 

And he's on the plane, everything ready to go, Mycroft probably fuming with anger but also pity by this point, and he gets a twinge. Almost as though something is...wrong. London seems...out of place. The minute he arrives he can taste it like he's left something to rot in the fridge, a head or some eyes perhaps. Because something is wrong and he is restless.

Which is why he doesn't stay. It's five minutes and he's already booked a flight off to wherever he can, because hell, even Nepal seems better than London at this rate and at least his brother isn't there to scold him. 

What he doesn't expect is to start hearing whispering, as people watch his shaking hands as he eats soup and them to tell him the tales of a place they call Kamar-Taj.


	4. Chapter 4

He doubts its existence at first, the seemingly perfect Holy Grail. But when he uses a computer to search it up, it's not too far from the city he's in and so soon he's on a goose chase. He'll do anything to stop this infernal shake that has taken over his hands. 

Oh and if John could see him now, it would be worse than ever before. Sure, yeah, he hadn't had any drugs since London, but that didn't mean he was alright. Sherlock had a beard, for Christ's sake. Completely uncontrollable hair as well, and was armed with a suitcase full of watches and pages of instructions. His fluency in all the languages allowed him to locate the place he was looking for in only a few days, and then he was standing there, knocking on the door with a deep breath and preying. 

"Mr Strange, we've been expecting you," said a dark haired man as he lead Sherlock to another room. The place seemed old fashioned and he'd even passed what looked like it could be a library. 

"Dr Strange," Sherlock corrected out of habit, still American even though they were deep in Nepal. It had become natural now. 

"Please wait here for the Grand Master," the guy smiled knowingly and nodded at him. Sherlock had sat down on the floor in a position that was supposedly culturally acceptable here. The man had been speaking English to him, but he ran through his explanation in a couple of language in his head just to be sure he wouldn't get stuck. It was unlikely he'd need it in Icelandic, but who knows at this point. 

And then from behind him a woman appeared. He could only describe her as having knowledge in her eyes, a soul that had seen many days but did not look it. 

"Sherlock Holmes. Didn't expect to have a detective here, but then again I suppose it is the consulting detective. I think I should be honoured."

"My name," Sherlock began in his American lilt, But was rather blatantly interrupted. 

"Not with me. You don't have to lie, Sherlock. At Kamar-Taj, no one lies," the woman smiled.

"Okay, then how old are you?" Sherlock frowned. It was getting more and more difficult to deduce this woman. She was so...god, the only way to describe it was 'weird' how Americanised had he become in his stay away. Cup of tea, cup of tea, cup of tea. 

But in the smile she gave, it wasn't just a smile. It was whispering words, as though she knew this was happening, like fulfilling a prophecy or something. If this was another cult, Sherlock didn't want in. Besides, it would be bad publicity once they decided to release it to the news. Faker than Hollywood celebrities' teeth. 

"I have lived on this Earth for a short time only but seen longer than millennia. Longer than your brain can comprehend, yet there is still so much the world could show me." Sherlock snorted. Okay, so she dodged the question and then made up some wishy washy nonsense. 

"No matter. I came here, today, to speak to you about-"

"Your hands," she finished for him. "See I can do that later but first," she placed a hand on his forehead and he looked at her in confusion, and then placed the other on his chest and pressed hard. 

Sherlock was having a full on panic attack now. Oh god oh god. Pressure on his chest not good not good reminds him of the car and the sea and the cliff and that night and no no no no he's not doing this again. His eyes are tightly closed and it takes at least thirty seconds before he's calmed himself down enough, breathing in and out incredibly deeply, to open them again.

And when he does, he freaks out again.


	5. Chapter 5

“Wh- what- what did you do?” Sherlock stared at the Ancient One with wide eyes, glancing down at his body which which NOT A PART OF HIM. He was floating and transparent and holy hell this was something in itself, it felt like he was high on a substance that caused detailed hallucinations.....Good distraction? No! Not time to think about distractions, he wanted to know what the hell was happening with his body!

“Basic Astral projection,” she explained briefly and watched as he floated around, “You’re taking this too well. It’s time for a little trip, Sherlock Holmes, to show you that London isn’t the only place in the world you should care for, even if John Watson resides there.”

Sherlock’s eyes widened at the mention of the blogger, wondering how on earth she knew about him already. 

And so he was sent off, through an almost- portal? He cried out as he wizzed away from the Ancient One. 

But she was replaced by beautiful sights, flying past him at such a speed that he couldn’t comprehend them. He saw the biggest things in the universe, from planets he had never even dreamt of to the very smallest, right down to an electron and a small microcosm that he spend less than a millisecond admiring. 

And then, as though no time had passed at all, he was back, standing in his body, in the room at Kamartaj. 

Woah. That’s all Sherlock could say. 

Perhaps John had a point. Perhaps the solar system was worth storing up in his big mind palace. 

“Sherlock, I can offer you a deal. I can fix your hands up and send you on your way - you can dwell on us forever but one can never return once they have walked away from us. Or, you can remain with us, and learn beyond imagination, become a Sorcerer.” 

“I want to stay,” Sherlock answered immediately. Anything other than going back to London. Funny, he had spent so long pining after the thoughts of going back to John and Baker Street, and everything he loved there, and now he was blatantly rejecting the idea. Coward.

“Are you sure? Mentally, it could destroy you. Many find this harder than they’d expect - and it’s normally the intelligent ones.”

“Completely certain. Where do I begin?”

“Wong,” The Ancient One smiled that smile again, looking at him as though he was an...achievement, almost. She didn’t seem surprised at all with his choice. “The librarian. He’ll provide you with starter books. When he thinks you’re ready, he’ll send you through to physical training.”

“My hands....” He muttered, trailing off. 

“They will fix themselves in time. But it may be harder for you than anyone else.”

“Challenges are life’s greatest pleasures,” he quoted, them wandered off to the library. 

He couldn’t see her, but he could feel the smile returning for a final time.

—

It had been exactly 28 days and Wong still hadn’t put him through to the next stage of training. 

“Another million-paged inanely-worded book?” Sherlock complained. Their grammar was impeccable, but their feel for modern writing...good god, they should get them all updated.

“Sherlock, I’ll pass you when you’re ready. It’s called patience, although I’m almost certain you never encountered it.” Sherlock was mostly sure he was wrong on that count: living with John, who was an average human, meant he had to allow for some slowing down time - patience. But obviously, Wong didn’t know John Watson. If he did, he’d probably hire him to take Sherlock off his busy hands: he was constantly asking questions and complaining, similar to how he treated his previous flatmate.

“Eldon only read 17 books, and you passed him! I’ve read literally over 70 - that’s 2.5 books a day, and these aren’t thin, either.”

“It’s not about quantity-“

“Let me remind you, you are a librarian in a sorcery HQ, not a primary school teacher.”

“Yes, well you’re a child,” Wong muttered under his breath. Sherlock had the feeling, deep down, that maybe Wong enjoyed these chats, because it showed there was someone with personality in this place, but as he had never shown any emotions towards Sherlock other than aggravation, he was beginning to become annoyed. People were supposed to be easily won over. And he was doing all the things you were supposed to do to be friends with someone. 

He’d returned all the books (there were so many) in pristine condition and, after having deduced that he listened to Beyonce shamefully, had made a single ladies joke! He had even fetched the groceries that one time, which always made Wong secretly happy. 

So perhaps Wong wasn’t the one to make friends with, but Sherlock persisted still, because, after all, he had nothing better to do.


	6. Chapter 6

“You’re ready,” Wong muttered to him four days later and Sherlock felt something blossom within him. Yes, he hasn’t had a case in too long, but this was giving him hope that hens be able to tackle cases that were far beyond his limits.

Superheroes had always been a closely held childhood fantasy for him, living in the world where the Avengers would fix all of New York and the World’s imminent threats. 

Mycroft had thought him an idiot for the fantasies of him being a part of the avengers, but then, Sherlock had seen Mycroft’s teenage diary, and there had definitely been some scribbles about wanting to be part of Bruce Banner’s science team that resides at the Avengers facility. 

Whereas Sherlock just wanted to be one of the team, an actual avenger. Be alongside Tony Stark, who he idolised and nursed a crush on throughout his teenage years. 

So maybe it was a stretch, the superhero idea. But Sherlock would definitely settle for Sorcerer.

——

As his hands shook uncontrollably, his anger festered even more. The hope that had blossomed was very quickly dying - his hands! The others who were learning were opening portals left and right (he envied then with their steady fingers, like his had been), while he would struggle to lift them for more than a minute.

Pain was a part of the experience, one of the books had told him, and the Ancient One, when she was around. Hell, he had known that, and he had experienced pain before, but this wasn’t immense pain (yet), this was just irritatingly repeated pain. Stressing out his brain, damaging his hands and putting a real strain on his patience. 

Sorcerer! Ha, it would never happen. He would slink back to his room each day with dwindling hope, dwelling on the fact that he could simply return to London and put this all behind him.

But no, he couldn’t. His intrigue had been sparked, and though it wasn’t a case, this wouldn’t be a jigsaw puzzle he’d put down out of frustration. He’d find the missing piece, however many damn books he had to read and shaky hand practices he was forced to accomplish.

—

It was times like these, Sherlock reflected, that he missed his Belstaff.

He wasn’t sure quite where he was but he guessed it was in the Himalayan mountain range because it was fucking cold. His hair, which was long but definitively not curly, was coated with snow and ice, and he was shivering out of natural bodily response.

God, the Ancient One was smart.

By being here it would force him to make a portal, because otherwise he would die. Obviously, he could wait out here for a few more minutes and then they would come and fetch him with disappointed faces, and cure him from his hypothermia with some hot soup, but that really wasn’t the point of the lesson. 

So he clenched his eyes tight and then lifted his hands, shaky. 

There were sparks, but sparks only. 

Think about his work, his cases. All of the types of tobacco ash, list them, alphabetically. Concentrate! 

And now it was Mycroft in his head, the feeble sparks getting gradually better, stronger. 

Mycroft, commanding. “Sherlock! Focus!” 

This could have all been a coincidence, him turning up here, him getting in that accident, it shouldn’t have happened, it must’ve been a coincidence but-

The universe is rarely so lazy. 

And if the universe is rarely so lazy, then it makes sense for him to be here. It makes sense that he should make a portal here, instead of running around London with- 

John. He has to get back to John. 

And suddenly his power is amplified, his purpose is meaningful, he no longer wants to freeze to death in the mountains because JOHN

And he steps through the portal and-


	7. Chapter 7

He’s in Baker Street. 221B, to be exact. He didn’t mean for the portal to take him here. An accident, of sorts, but his unconscious desire all the same. 

Normally this place would bring instant warmth, a fire cracking and the air full of two living, breathing men. A kettle on, the humming of background machines and fridges and ovens. But no. 

Baker Street was like a mausoleum. 

He wondered, taking a similar path to that of Moriarty, fingering the dust on the mantle. It was thick. The air was full of particulates, desperately clinging to his mouth. 

There was no one living here.

John wasn’t living here.  
Where is he living?

And then Sherlock couldn’t bear it, not any more, not without John. So he portalled, with difficulty, trying to keep the tears from falling as he went back to Nepal, to the Ancient One.

Who looked upon him with a neutral face. 

“You shouldn’t have gone back, Sherlock.”

“I know,” he said with gravity. He regretted it now. He was right. London didn’t have the same feel about it now. The lack of John unnerved him. 

“Stay. Keep training. We’ll make a Sorcerer out of you yet.” And then she was gone.

—  
The gravity that Sherlock had portalled somewhere, somehow, trans-continent only hit him the next day, and it made him much like Scrooge after he had reformed.

He had deleted the loneliness of Baker Street, for he felt it had been detrimental to his performance, and was now prancing around Wong to exclaim to him how incredible and astonishing it truly was that he had mastered it.

“I wouldn’t say mastered,” Wong chastised. It was an accurate statement. It still took Sherlock a few tries to lift his hands the correct way. 

But two months later he had shaped up, and the Ancient One gifted him with a precious heirloom, a cloak. It was not a cape, as he had informed many when they wondered past it. (Sherlock had always secretly admired it). The cloak seemed to like him. It was technically called the Cloak of Levitation, and it was bizarrely personified. Owning it felt like having achieved a puppy from your anti-pet parents. There was easily a sense of achievement given by putting it on. His months of hard work hadn’t been wasted, especially when the Ancient One deemed him a Sorcerer.  
—

So he took off, a few farewells later, back shooting around the world except this time with the new found magic. It enabled him to easily track down and conquer Moriarty’s threads in the web. For some of them, he didn’t use magic, like being kidnapped by the Serbians. He simply placed his cloak in a protective place and then let himself deduce his heart out. It was actually reasonably therapeutic. 

And then, the last thread was taken care of (it had easily been one of the most relaxing ones, he didn’t know why he didn’t save a more interesting one until last, like the one with the drug smuggling through the school children’s bread supply. Messy, that was. They had appreciated his cloak though. 

It was nice to feel like a superhero, even if he wasn’t.


	8. Chapter 8

He portalled to London, but not to Baker Street for fear of it being busy or completely lonely as per last time. The redacted memory of the dust had been coming back to him, slowly, and it felt like a bad taste in the mouth. As though something was slowly choking him from the inside. 

The Diogenes club. An area where he was likely to find his brother, as long as he remained well disguised enough not to cause attention. Not that most of the people would consider him a celebrity or anything worth mentioning - after all, plenty of ‘dead’ people wandered the halls of that building looking for peace and quiet. 

Mycroft was rather obviously ecstatic that he was back, despite his calm demeanour. Even his brother had tells, and the way his hand tapped at his knees and his eyes flickered showed his attitude towards his brother’s return.

“You really felt the need to stop contacting me for 16 months, and then show up here out of the blue?” Mycroft raised an eyebrow, displeased. 

A rhetorical question. That was the Mycroft equivalent of a hug.

“I really thought you’d gotten the message after phone number 23 went to the homeless shelter, but you persisted still for at least 30 phones.”

“I needed to check you were alright. For Mummy’s sake.” Mycroft reprimanded.

“You didn’t tell her, did you?” Alarmed, Sherlock stared at him. 

“No, of course not, she’d skin me alive. But she would burn me at the stake if I let you die, so.”

“Thank lord. It will already be hard enough breaking it to them, I will save the reprimand for later. But anyways, why the phones? You had spies on me all the time anyways.”

“Yes, up until you went to Nepal and disappeared for a few months. Who knows what you were up to then? Certainly not Anthea. We did think it was drugs but you’ve obviously been clean. You came back on our radar by Kazakhstan.”

“Ah, the nuclear missiles. Yes. But no, I didn’t do any drugs.”

“And the explanation for the missing months?” Mycroft asked, seething. He couldn’t take not knowing.

“Mycroft, me being missing has made you sloppy. You can’t tell from my physique?” Sherlock spun around. 

“No I most certainly will not. Don’t ever use the word physique in my presence again, that made me extremely uncomfortable.”

“You suck, brother mine. I will inform you, but not here. Your office, tomorrow,” Sherlock glanced around, “There are listening ears here.”

“Most of them are deaf, Sherlock, or can’t speak.” 

“Your office, tomorrow.”

“And where will you go in that time?” Mycroft called softly. Sherlock halted. “Baker Street?”

“No...no. I think I’ll go to a hotel for the night.”  
To avoid the dust...

—

Sleeping in a hotel in London had been less than civilised, and it always made him feel like he was simply a tourist in his own city. But needs must, and it was better than staying in Mycroft’s posh mansion. 

Hell, he’d rather do a lot of things than willingly stay with his brother. 

But the meeting with his brother couldn’t wait - there was simply so much he needed to know, desperately, about his city but most importantly the people in his life. Aka John. 

So that was how he found himself ‘chatting’ with Anthea about his time away. 

“I haven’t had a holiday in years myself,” Anthea commented. She raised her eyebrows towards the closed door of the office. “He hasn’t either, although I expect you knew that.”

“England would probably collapse if the pair of you left it,” Sherlock glanced towards the door, wishing for it to be over.

“He wasn’t the same without you here. He was stressed. Always wanting to know where you were, yet not really knowing your well-being.”

“That is his normal state of being, I thought. ‘Overprotective’, Mummy calls him. I think he’s more obsessive.” 

”Siblings, they just try and look out for you.”

“Yeah, until he snitches on me to Mummy,” Sherlock growls.

“He’s trying to be better,” Anthea looked up and then nodded for Sherlock to go through. He thought, for them, that was a pretty civilised chat.


	9. Chapter 9

“I went away to become a wizard," Sherlock explained for the umpteenth time. Mycroft was seconds away from crushing a pencil between his fingers.

"I want a serious answer, brother mine," Mycroft glanced at him coolly. 

"That is my answer. The answer." 

"For god’s sake, you aren’t a wizard. This is preposterous. What has the holiday done to you?!"

"Holiday?" Sherlock was really going to shout at him now. Jesus, he’d been tortured - beaten to pieces! Did Mycroft simply not understand? And then the emotional torture...

"You took an extended break from work and went abroad."

"Look," Sherlock took a deep breath, “I’m not going to argue with you, not any longer. Just tell me: where is John Watson?”

“What makes you think I’d have kept tabs on your goldfish?” Mycroft stared him down, but his mouth twitched.

“In order to not break my heart,” Sherlock whispered, shifting the conversation. John was his life, his oxygen. Mycroft, whilst finding the idea idiotically sentimental, took into account that his younger brother was quite deeply invested in the idea of feeling. 

So yes, he had a file. It was detailed and up to date, or at least it had been.

“This ended a year ago, Mycroft.” Sherlock frowned as he finished scrolling through it. “What happened, did your budget get cut?” 

“I don’t get budget cuts,” he glared. “Don’t be an idiot, look at the last paragraph, detective.”

Deceased: 23/8/14  
Was struck by a car on Sherborne Lane in London. Unknown driver, 2 killed. Cremated, not buried. 

Dead. The words hit Sherlock’s stomach like he had consumed a rock. Cremated. No, Mycroft wouldn’t have...he would have reached out, called, done something. There was no way John could be...

“Dead,” Mycroft smirked. “Or at least that’s what the records will say. And anyone who knows him. Most thought it was a suicide, your fault. They thought he took his own life because you jumped.”

“What did he do?” Sherlock eyed Mycroft like a hawk, watching for every change in facial expression. Anything could give him away. 

Sherlock had regretted the stipulation that he was not allowed to know of John’s condition. It had been stupid. How did he even last it?

Well, he thought, he hadn’t, not really. He’d gone back to Baker Street. Dusty Baker Street, empty, void of human life. That had been a weakness, his human side launching out of him. 

“He became an MI5 operative, got bored, transferred over to the CIA under an alias in a last ditch attempt to find you or find someone who knew where you were.”

“He could’ve just knocked on your doorstep!” Sherlock groaned exaggeratedly. This was not what he’d wanted when he’d portalled back to London. He’d really been holding out hope he’d calmly settle back into a life with John and never have to be tortured again. 

“He did. Repeatedly. It was irritating so I sent him on a mission with MI5.” Mycroft rolled his eyes. “Could’ve given me a thanks when his alias paperwork went through so quickly, but I didn’t receive one. And I haven’t, since then.”

“Has he met Tony Stark yet?” Sherlock quipped, mind dancing with the possibility - he just simply couldn’t help himself. Yes, granted it was random, but Sherlock had been a child once. 

“Ha. I’d forgotten your childhood obsession with Iron Man. I think they may have crossed paths once or twice,” Mycroft cast his thoughts back. Sherlock had always been jealous of Mycroft for meeting Tony. The Ice Man had been dismissive of the billionaire but respected him all the same. 

“Where is he?” Sherlock was racing with excitement. John, John, John. He was going to see John, finally, after two years. 

“Anthony is in Malibu, actually. But he’s with Mrs Virginia Stark, so do not butt in, that’s rude.”

“I meant John.” 

“John Watson died a year ago. Everett Ross, on the other hand, is in LA.” 

“Thanks bro,” Sherlock opened a portal, hands shaky, and zoomed away. Back to the States, then. Except the City of Angels this time. Well, it certainly was if John was there.


End file.
